What Happens on Vacation

I haven’t written much lately, which is sort of like not eating for me. Writing is my inhale/exhale. It’s my therapy, my sanity, my way of tunneling through the weights of life that inevitably pile up and block the light. I don’t know why I haven’t been writing, really. Likely reasons lurk in the back forty of my subconscious, the the loudest and most obvious being that I don’t really want to unpack all that’s happening and look it in the eyeballs.

For 39 months now, I’ve been connecting the dots and forcing myself to come to healthy conclusions, and I think maybe I’m as adjusted to this new normal as Im ever going to be. And by adjusted, I mean I can stay upright and functional while desperately longing for the old normal. I don’t know if deeper levels of “acceptance” are possible and I would probably question the credibility of any counselor who tried to suggest otherwise.

We, my husband, my family and I, are living in this weird, mostly-silent coexistence with ALS, which is a little like trying to do your grocery shopping while handcuffed to a serial killer. As long as he doesn’t impede your immediate progress, you’re just glad to be able to get something marked off the to do list. It’s not impossible, but it’s also sort of exhausting, and there is literally no moment when you don’t fondly remember the sweet, unshackled life you once lived.

We’ve come to the Oregon coast this week; running for refuge to the place we’ve vacationed for years. The shoreline of the pacific ocean is vast and largely unknown to us, but this stretch of it is our sand and these are our waves. We’ve travelled every inch of this tiny hamlet, eaten at every restaurant, and over time watched bookstores become wine shops become art galleries become bait and tackle shops and back to bookstores again. Oregon coastal towns are not hip or fancy, but this one fits us like a glove. We needed to bring Steve here. We needed to be here together again…to feel the sand in our toes and the wind in our hair and to maybe for a minute fill our lungs with the fresh air of life-as-it-once-was.

And we have. We have come and we have had some beautifully refreshing moments, but also some so poignant and painful I’m not even sure I have a compartment to put them in. More than any other time, I have had to fight to stay in the present, corralling my fears about the future and questions about vacations to come into a fenced-off place in my heart where they won’t run roughshod over the here-and-now. This is harder than it’s ever been because the future is closer than it’s ever been.

But we are here and this is now. Today, we live. And we trust the God who guards our days to fill each one with hope. Because hope does not disappoint. It is a daily, sometimes hourly, decision for me to say, “into Your hands I commit my hope and heart and husband. Into Your hands, I even commit these handcuffs, and I won’t use them as a reason to stop living or dreaming or loving well.”

That’s what I’m learning on my pre-summer vacation.

With hope,

Bo